Jackets and Gooseberries

"It wouldn't buy a jacket for a gooseberry" was one of my mother's phrases when observing a pittance of cash offered for some bauble or other.

Well, that was me last night.

I got paid to perform. And the lovely audience there bought some of my greeting cards featuring my photos and my poetry.

And all the big bucks were added up and there wasn't a jacket to be had for the poor gooseberries.

But was I thrilled to pieces?

Unbelievably.

So I stroked the wee cheque. And counted the cash and put it into an envelope and tucked it away.

And I tell you: There's nothing better than getting paid for something you'd do for nothing you love it so much.

Fooled

Maybe it's my age, having lived looooong but today I was caught completely unawares at my hairdresser's. I think I wrote about her place before. An old Victorian house in St. John's. All artifacts preserved, fire places, chandeliers, crown mouldings. A darling place with stairs running everywhere and the best atmosphere.

Every six months they mix up all the cutters and stylists and colourists, give them new work stations in different rooms in the house, match them up with those they haven't worked with before.

"Keeps us all fresh," says Bernice my faithful stylist. She's a gift, took me from hair to the waist to a smooth bob that lasts and lasts. You find a good cutter you stick with her/him.

So now she's been matched with this absolutely outrageous stylist for 6 months. I think my jaw dropped when I cast eyes on her for the first time today. Breddie, her name sounded like. Breddie was dressed in an absolutely wild purple and orange mini-dress revealing much of her body. Bright red pumps with 6" heels. Piercings with hardware all over her face including her mouth and nose. Matching colourful tattoos featuring wild flowers covered both her legs, her arms, her breasts and her neck. Her dyed blonde hair with purple streaks swung to her waist festooned with yellow bits and bobs. And one long ostrich feather of emerald green. I took her for an out of control 19 year old.

"Breddie's a card," laughed my stylist who's in her mid forties and dresses soberly in black with sensible work heels and a soothing manner.

Well, thought I grouchily, "card" would be a massive understatement in my book. I can just see the drug den and the biker boyfriend and their lives of dodgy cop avoidance.

An older woman toddled in and sat in Breddie's chair and proceeded to ask her for the wedding photos from the weekend. Whose wedding, thought I, surely Breddie and her criminal dimwitted druggie biker wouldn't be invited to anyone's weddinge

So Breddie hauls out her Iphone and treats the four of us in the room to HER wedding pictures at a pricey well known golf club. In white. All tats under wraps. All hardware removed. Criminal Biker Boy is in a black tux and a perfect hairdo with not a tat or a piece of metal or leather or hairy armpits in sight.

And the killer shot? Their two little flower girls scattering blossoms at their feet as the bride and groom kiss.

Their daughters, five and three years old.

Downhill to the Barriers

My friend goes downhill rapidly. We talk. She wants me to come. So we can hold hands for a while. All expenses paid (she can afford it).

I didn't sleep last night. Tossing and turning. "I have to." "I can't." Nothing was clear. There are too many commitments here. Not least of which is to elder dog, Ansa, who is getting frailer by the day. The walk tonight was pitifully slow. She's gone a bit barky also because she's deaf and also "sees" danger in the shadows of trees. She will go down protecting me. I can't pass her over for care to anyone. For one, she can't jump into the car anymore plus she's too heavy to lift. And she's a real care now.

Next, I have a performance - advertised on teevee yet - this Saturday, sold out. Like, I don't show for this?

Then I have two separate PGs coming to stay next week.

I could go on, there's loads more but I'm boring myself to bits as it is. Someone reminded me of how sick I got the last time I was in Toronto and I positively dread the polluted air there. I have weak lungs (double pneumonia and pleurisy as a 9 year old)and last time was so bad I had to leave earlier than expected.

And guilt, we haven't talked guilt yet. I'd love to see her and there is such urgency to it as she tells me she's terrified her brain won't be there by the weekend even. I cry a lot of useless tears.

But, I can't surmount all these obstacles to get to her. And I'm old. Did I mention that? And, um, tired and not overly well myself. And still reeling from Helen's death. And Laura's death.

Apologies to faithful readers: I'll get around to reading your blogs one of these days. Promise.

Help!

Anybody out there know how to "fix" the formatting on my blog. It's been wonky for a couple of weeks. I went into the backlog of posts to see if a photo/picture was too big or book list too long, etc. But to no avail. My posts are thrown to one side and my archives list emerges on the left.

It shows up on devices with none of these issues it appears.

Much appreciated, it's, well, irritating.

What Keeps Us Going

I don't know the answer to the question for the "US" of it. I can only talk about me.

Talk. My friend and I talk. Yes, she's still in the hospital. We chatted into the wee hours of this morning, even though I had a "look-sharp-and-alert" meeting in a few hours focussing on local demographics. It was good to hear her voice and wit and intelligence. She's a brilliant woman.

She's taking notes of all the stuff going on around her and she read it to me and we were hysterical laughing even though a lot of it wasn't really funny at all but taken out of context it is. Hospitals can be cruel, callous places. Particularly for those who don't behave as expected - subservient to Demz in Charge.

I said to her: these writings of yours need to be a performance piece, seriously. For example: she is lying there with her eyes closed and two nurses are changing both her colostomy bag and her diaper and she overhears one of them say to the other sotto voce: "Did you ever see such a weird vagina?" And of course, this begged the question: how could they see inside her vagina, or did these two supposedly medically articulate people mean vulva or labia? How confident am I, she says, when the hospital staff can't accurately name body parts?

Meanwhile we crack up through further readings from her journal. Every overheard conversation or off the cuff remarks by doctors to each other, her hand-wringing visitors who find her 'difficult', her inept wheelchair pusher who loses control of all her life-giving gear in the garden and literally trips over all her tubes.

And that, my friends, that joyful hooting, keeps me from curling into a ball and sobbing my heart out.

Blog Jam

Ansa's getting old. Really old. Bad incident last night with her bleeding from her mouth all over the downstairs. I think her cataracts cause her to bump into things. At first I thought it was another animal attack outside but there were no scratches on her face and I think she pierced her lip with a tooth when she ran into something in her 2 minutes out of my sight. I can't get near her jaw to check.

Tonight she got stuck on the floor. I'm not an engineer and she's a heavy dog + bad back here too. I tried a sling with a sheet and then as she licks my hand (gawd, it breaks your heart it does) I heave upwards with her back end and she lets me. We are both weepy from the indignity and the effort. Problem solved. For now. I've now banned her from the office as she won't walk on the rugs laid down all over it. Dog are like that, delicately stepping around all safety measures. She's on the back hall big rug now. I may have to fence her in a little more.

Meanwhile my PG* has fallen so deeply in love with Newfoundland he's bought a house here and is not going back to the U.S. but is outsourcing the sale and disposal of his properties in Massachusetts. Imagine. I don't think it's my delicate crepes for breakfast or my wee Tigeen doing the trick but how lovely. He is enchanted. As I was and am. The fairies got him too, as the saying goes.

We have our big community midday dinner tomorrow. Hot turkey meal, veggies, dessert, tea/coffee all for $12.00. I mean seriously. I couldn't cook it for that.

I made an old recipe from Ireland tonight. It was served in spring when there were more winter onions than they knew what to do with left over hanging from the rafters in the barns and sheds, so they'd be incorporated into a lovely whole wheat bread. Lashings of them. Usually served for breakfast with an egg or two. The carmelized onions sit on the bottom of the pan when you stick the loaf in the oven and then they swim their way through the bread, some breaking rhrough the top. Heav-en-lee.

*Paying guest

In praise of the ordinary.

All under this very same moon some are going through rough times right now. I think of them as I do my day to day routines. I hang clothes on the line. I have a long term PG* staying at the Tigeen. I cook breakfast for him every morning. We talk. For hours it seems.

I list my two spare bedrooms for rent. I rewrite draft 8 of a short story I am submitting to a local competition. I pay bills. I knit a bit. I read. I nap. I drive to get the mail. Friends drop off produce from their garden. I plan a curry for tomorrow night. I talk to Daughter who invites me for a lunch of shark meat. I email my hospitalized friend a few times during the day. She is writing a story too. I cry reading a few blogs. I laugh reading a few more.

I pick some beach blossoms and vase them. I frolic with the dog on the meadow. I breathe in the smell of the sheets and duvet covers fresh off the clothesline and think of my granny who dried hers on top of the hawthorn at the side of her field. Oh - that scent of all that is good and simple.

I think: ain't life grand. Look at that moon! Oh, the golden light of it reflected in the water!

Thank you, grandmother moon. Thank you for this extraordinary, ordinary life.

*Paying guest

Wallop!

My friend D**** and I email each other many times a day. As thoughts strike us. She likes my cursing. I curse out what ails her and the sometimes appalling treatment by the medical people at the hospital, her occasional depressive thoughts, life. You know. It all helps. She's told to "Be brave" a lot. Have you ever heard of anything more unhelpful when you are scared to death of tumours lumping out the hidden organs of your body and half your bowel is lodged somewhere in the trash outside the hospital labs?

So I tell her to ask these medical morons to please change places with her - they can lie down in her bed and she can yell at them to be brave after she's sliced them open. I said that to a team of them once, when my surgical wound opened up and started bleeding all over the hospital floor and I was screaming and they said it to me. It shut them up.

For what is bravery? Those poor teenage soldiers in both "world" wars smiling while they were used as cannon fodder and slaughtered?

Chin barely quivering while biopsies confirm your worst fears?

Whimpering quietly under the covers when the pain meds fail to ease your suffering?

As far as I'm concerned not groaning/moaning/screaming/yelling in pain is just protecting the delicate sensibilities of those around us, right? It's a very good thing to let that pain out. Why bottle it up for the ulcers to play with?

I was sharing with some friends over dinner last night the fact that I am now terrified of walking in case the sudden paralysis in my legs stops me cold in my tracks, as has happened in the past, and heaven forbid I should burden someone with having to come and get me.

And we all had a good laugh, like gawd forbid we should be a nuisance to anyone even though we're crumpled on a heap on the road, breathing our last.

It must be Irish. Or something.

Let me die bravely, right here on main street.

Sorry for your trouble for having to shovel me off to the side.

D**** and I had a good laugh over that one.

I Take Notes

I take notes on books I read. I wish I had done so even as a child. But. Notes trigger ideas in me, validate feelings often unexpressed or ephemeral. Answer the whys. Illuminate the squelched thoughts. Give me hope, yank me from despair.

For example:

I love this thought from P170 of The Burgess Boys, by Elizabeth Strout:

"And she learned - freshly, searchingly - of the privacy of sorrow. It was as though she had been escorted through a door into some large and private club that she had not even known existed. Women who miscarried."

Anyone who has miscarried (myself, my daughter, some friends)finds this reflection resonates. Deeply and profoundly.

It's a private club. Lifetime membership.

Crazy Knit Lady

Equivalent to "Cat Lady". No, no cats. Not now. And in the past never in extremis. Two was the maximum ever along with two dogs and two birds and two fish. Kids. What can I say. Now no cats. But knitting, yeah.

You see before you a yogurt maker I got for a dollar yonks ago. It was missing two jars, I had to use two jam jars for a while. It never had a cover. But a dollar. Hey.

Then Daughter found 3 jars at a flea market for 50cents each. You'll note yogurt maker is nudging its way to a deluxe model now. No more jelly jars, All jars (and a spare) are now milk white glass.

But I got tired of wrapping it in towels while it did its biz, you know?

And I had leftover wool. And knitting in the morning has become a sort of meditation for me after breakfast. I am hoping my BP will improve, as in slide downwards, as I'm getting a bit tired of my weekly dates with my doctor. Not my type.

So tada! behold the yogurt sweater!

I am hoping Ramana will see this as he makes his own yogurt too and as far as we are concerned we are the only two in the whole universe who do so.

Terminal Technology

So. I write to my friend who is, to all intents and purposes, terminal. In the hospital. With bags and tubes and discomfort and pain and anger and frustration and fear.

These are her wishes. This is her e-mail from last night exactly as written:

Not a great day

Cleaning draining

Dr visits

Intravenus injections daily now - no oral

Learned how to check blood

Endericonolist testing gor cancer now

Sugars still up but coming down

No visitors please right now

No calls

Cannot answer easily

Easier to communicate by email

I am not going anywhere

This is my reply:

I hope today is less painful for you.

I hope your spirit can take little journeys inside you to better places.

I remember an A-Frame near Tweed where we had such a happy weekend sitting by the water. I was knitting. You were cross stitching. And we talked and talked.

I still have your needlework (in a frame) hanging on my wall.

{{{{{Dxxxx}}}}}

I thought to send a shared memory every day. I think that would help me if I were her.

Who's to tell? Who's to know?

I know I wouldn't want anyone around me. Email is good. Very, very good. The right distance.

And PS - this blog is anonymous, otherwise I would never breech her confidence.

Rose Gardens

OK. Stand up those amongst us who were promised one?

Not me.

Certainly not me.

And not those I care about, for sure.

Such sad news today. From my former life in Ontario: One old friend died on the weekend, he visited me here in Newfoundland a few years back. Another old friend was taken to hospital by ambulance in the last few days and she is riddled with The Lad*. She was terrified of doctors and now it's all too late, it seems. Another is in palliative/hospice care with a few days left.

I write all this down so I can look at the reality of it. My back (due to that awful fall I had) is acting up and causing me some grief and I could list a few other "what-ails-me"s for you but I won't as it all seems trivial and there's nothing more boring than a blow-by-blow of someone's health challenges.

Especially when those she cares about are in various stages of terminal illness and she's not.

But then again, we're all terminal. Savour the days, my friends. We never know when our numbers are called.

*Anyone ever heard this terminology used for cancer? We used it in Ireland back in the day. Maybe still, who knows?

Rearview Mirror

This kitchen towel and dishcloths are on their way to a special friend right now.

I heard an expression a long time ago which helps me today.

"It's OK to glance in the rearview mirror once in a while but don't stare or you'll miss the view in front of you."

Something like that.

And you know what?

It's a wonderful piece of advice.

Plus: running out of time - at my age, you just don't know how much of it is left.

So no staring back anymore.

I stay where my hands are and dream up new dreams, plan for the future, have a happy in every day (or two or three) and practice mindfulness and kindfulness a couple of times during the 24.

And tired. I try not to get tired. It does nasty things to my brain.

Jewels

There's something about good friends who come to stay.

Hard to define.

I've lost a fair whack of them in the last few years, so the remaining are very precious indeed.

So last night, just the sitting and chatting and sharing the "all-of-its" is better than a week at a spa with therapists hand and foot 24/7.

Ya know?

Antidote

....view last night from my front deck....

Antidote to what, you might ask? Well, life.

A friend has been making these posts about "What makes me happy today." So I thought to adapt it and use it myself. Focus on the good stuff. I felt the stress pile up again, too much on the platter at the moment. Too much bursting of bubbles too. I feel I was living in one for a while and now it's smashed wide open and I see my delusion, my tolerance and excuse making for some pretty nasty behaviour exhibited towards me. And while there's freedom in that awakening, there's also grieving. We only truly grieve broken dreams, I believe. I don't like waking up to reality but once I'm through a few days of it there's a wonderful freedom in the untethering of expectations.

So here's my happies for today:

I was gifted with a whole evening to myself. A meeting was cancelled as we didn't have a quorum.

I found a pot of thyme. You need to know how much I adore thyme and can never, ever find it in Newfoundland. I found a wee pot today. It is sitting in my kitchen window as if we have sun.

I planned out the menus for friends who are arriving to stay for a while. I love planning menus and looking at well used recipes. One of the friends can't tolerate garlic or onions so I enjoyed the challenge of leaving my very favourite ingredients out of things and substituting (lime anyone?)

I hung some pictures, I don't know why I haven't hung them here before as they all have meaning.

And while I was hanging them, I thought: why aren't you hanging your own pictures? So I'll get a few blown up and framed. That will make me even happier, seeing my own work on my walls.

Misinterpretation

I have this thing. I just wonder if anyone else does it. I'll mishear or misunderstand something and my version becomes my favourite and if you happen to say the word or the phrase I secretly convert it to my chosen meaning.

Example:

My first awareness of this came about when my mother was reading out loud from a letter she'd received from my godmother, her sister, who lived in London, England. I would have been about eight.

Mum read that my aunt and her family were having their annual "hols" in Weston-Super-Mare that summer.
I was green with envy. I thought: what an adventure, riding out to the west on great big horses.

"Why can't we do that?" I asked her.

"Because we're in Ireland and they're in England!" my mother probably explained.

"But there are lots of big horses here too, we don't have to go to England!"

At this point I was ignored I would think, I was one of those kids who would try the patience of anyone within earshot, always asking question after question.

But the visions in my head of Auntie Norah, Uncle Michael and their two small daughters galloping off to the magical west on their super mares never left me.

Even today, every time I see or hear Weston-Super-Mare I can still picture the four of them, hair flying, laughing joyfully, cantering over hill and dale chasing after Roy Rogers and Trigger - for that was the only west I knew then.

The Wild West.

Oh, and happy trails to you!

Blogiversary!

I've been 10 years blogging. Close to a million page views. Wow, it's been some ride alright. It keeps the writing sharpened, gives the venting a release, provides an outlet for the sometimes down days and a shared exuberance on the up days.

I couldn't have done it without so many of you out there, the comments, the private emails, the sometimes face to face meetings which are always joyful, the shared meals, the laughter. The support. The loyalty. The heartbreak when some of you (thankfully few) died.

Even gifts in the mail. Those too. Some of you came to my play. That took my breath away. Some of us talk on the old fashioned phone. Imagine. All of you would be friends in real life too.

The blog world is something particularly unique for us elders who get to share the fears and challenges of aging. And the unknowns too when parents are long dead and family is distant so there are no lanterns to light the way or offer a word of support through the rough, solitary times. I've found so much solid information on "all that ails us" but also the incredible joys of rediscovering selves that had vanished somewhere in youth with increased responsibilities and emerge again when families - and even grandchildren - are raised.

I thank you all out there, too many to name or link to (I'd be sure to forget someone!)

Write on. Read on.

Me, I'm so grateful I'm in the age of the internet. The era of communication across the planet. I have blog friends in so many countries.

Thank you.

Namaste!

Blog Jam

I took this shot on the ferry travelling from Fogo Island to Farewell. I love the colours and what appears to be quite a disorderly jumble on deck - an order not visible to me, obviously.

Our wee trip was amazing. Not least of which were three visits to the Fogo Island Inn where we mingled and conversed with guests from around the world. We had decided on treating ourselves to breakfast there (room prices average $1,000 a night). We had budgeted $50 for breakfast and were pleasantly surprised it was only $27.00 each. Surroundings defy description as does the interior. We were invited back for a "session" after dinner and met some very interesting San Franciscans and Australians and a writer for Architectural Digest.

It was a wonderful few days, we both needed the break from routine, and me from all the painting havoc around my house.

I'm back into the grindstone now. The painting is magnificent, I can't get over the "new look" in my house but everything else is in turmoil around the pristine walls, doors and ceilings.

On top of all that I have to prepare for two performances as seanchai - one on this Sunday, the other in August.

And guests, did I mention guests? Guests.

Last Night

Her Feet

I remember kissing them
So tiny, soft, boneless
Toenails smaller than a wish.

Thinking then
They would
Dance and run
On golden sands
And splash sparkles
Around her of blue
Atlantic rainbows

It was last night
I saw them in
Oyster pink leather
Worn, used, middle-aged

And

I remembered kissing them
So tiny, soft, boneless
Toenails smaller than a wish.

July 5, 2015

Canada Day

Canada Day in Newfoundland is crazy fun. Parties in every village along the shore, everyone wears red and white (including yours truly) and the musicians and dancers come out in full force. It is marvellous fun. You have to pace yourself as attending EVERY party along the way is de rigeur for many. All surfaces are adorned: face paint, balloons and hats and Canadian flags everywhere.

I took many pictures as it was a spectacularly sunny day. The one above is another clothesline shot. I took a similar ones years ago and it was a best-seller as a card and featured in both large and small calendars. There were clothesline full of clothes along my meandering route. A bit of a wind happening so the drying was excellent. And you haven't lived unless your sheets are run through with ocean breezes.

A friend sent me the video below, our national anthem interpreted by whales. And yes the whales are on their way. We get thousands every year.

Enjoy. It makes me cry. But in a good way.